Improvement in apparatus for steaming oysters



PATENT HENRY EVANS, JR., OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

IMPROVEMENT IN APPARATUS FOR STEAMING OYSTERS.

Specification forming art of Letters Patent No. 35,511, dated June 10, 1862.

To all whom, it muy concer-n:

Be it known that I, HENRY EVANS, J r., of the city and county of Baltimore, and State of Maryland, have invented a new and useful and Improved Apparatus for Steaming Oysters, Vegetables, 85e.; and I do hereby declare that the same is described and represented in the following specification and drawings.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its construction and the mode of using it, referring to the drawings, in which the same letters indicate like parts in each of the figures.

Figure l is a plan or top View of the apparatus. Fig. 2 is an elevation of one side with the door open. Fig. 3 is an end elevation without the car.

The nature of my invention consistsv in the combination of a steambox with rail cars and tracks, arranged to operate in the manner hereinafter described.

In the accompanying drawings, A is the Hoor, upon which a strong steam-box, B, is placed, large enough to receive a car filled with oysters. This box may be made in the form shown, or in such other form as will answer the purpose, and provided with a door, B', which may be lirmlyi'astened and packed with felt or some other material, so as to make the joint between the door and the box as near steam-tight as convenient.

G (l are rail-tracks, fastened to the door and leading into the box B, for the car D to run on, which car is made to contain about twenty bushels of oysters. The bottom of this car is made of bars E E, with spaces F F between the bars, to allow the steam from the pipe G to pass up between them, in, among andv between the oysters to cook them, so that the shells will open freely, and allow theoysters to he removed with far less labor and in far less time than would be required to remove them before they were cooked by the steam.

The steam-pipe Gr passes into the box B down to the floor, and is bent in the form shown by dotted lines in Fig. l, so that the car will stand right over it when it is in the box, and the upper side of the pipe is perforated with a series 1of holes for the steam to issue and pass up between the bars of the bottom of the car, as before mentioned.

H is an opening in the iioor, and I is a lateral transfer -tablc, arranged to traverse on the rails J J in the opening H, to transfer the car of steamed oysters from the track G C to the track K K, parallel to C C.

The wheels of the transfer-table are shown 'at L L, Fig. 2.

The rails C C and K K should each be made long enough to hold three or more cars between the transfer-table I and a similar transfer-to ble at the opposite ends of the tracks nd K, so that the cars may be loadedsvith oysters on the track C C, and run into the box B, and steamed until the shells open freely, then run out onto the transfer-table I, and transferred to and run onto the tracks K K, and the oysters taken out, and the car run onto the transfer-table, (at the opposite end of track from the table 1,) by which it is transferred to the track C C, and loaded or filled with oysters, and run forward into the steam-box B.

After the car of steamed oysters was run off of the table I onto the track K the table was run back to the track C C, and another car lled with oysters run over it into the steambox B to be steamed. Thus, by having a series of four or six cars the laborers can be constantly employed loading and unloading in succession as they are steamed and emptied, and a regular and continuous business carried on. The end of the box B to which the door is hinged may be made perpendicular, it' preferred.

I believe I have described and represented the improved apparatus which I have invented for steaming oysters so as to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use it.

I will now state what I desire to secureby Letters Patent, to wit:

In combination with a steam-box, the cars and tracks, constructed and arranged substantially as described.

' HENRY EVANS, JR. Witnesses:

I. DENNIS, Jr., W. THOMPSON. 

